Person

Luke A Winslow

Science is an increasingly collaborative endeavor. In an era of Web-enabled research, new tools reduce barriers to collaboration across traditional geographic and disciplinary divides and improve the quality and efficiency of science. Collaborative online code management has moved project collaboration from a manual process of email and thumb drives into a traceable, streamlined system where code can move directly from the command-line onto the Web for discussion, sharing, and open contributions. Within the USGS, however, data have no such analogous system. To bring data collaboration and sharing within the USGS to the next level, we are missing crucial components. The sbtools project team built sbtools, an R interface...

Atlantic coast piping plover (Charadrius melodus) nest sites are typically found on low-lying beach and dune systems, which respond rapidly to coastal processes like sediment overwash, inlet formation, and island migration that are sensitive to climate-related changes in storminess and the rate of sea-level rise. Data were obtained to understand piping plover habitat distribution and use along their Atlantic Coast breeding range. A smartphone application called iPlover was developed to collect standardized data on habitat characteristics at piping plover nest locations. The application capitalized on a network of trained monitors that observe piping plovers throughout their U.S. Atlantic coast breeding range as...

Abstract (from http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/lno.10557/abstract): Responses in lake temperatures to climate warming have primarily been characterized using seasonal metrics of surface-water temperatures such as summertime or stratified period average temperatures. However, climate warming may not affect water temperatures equally across seasons or depths. We analyzed a long-term dataset (1981–2015) of biweekly water temperature data in six temperate lakes in Wisconsin, U.S.A. to understand (1) variability in monthly rates of surface- and deep-water warming, (2) how those rates compared to summertime average trends, and (3) if monthly heterogeneity in water temperature trends can be predicted by heterogeneity...

While climate change is rapidly warming lakes and reservoirs, warming rates can be highly variable among systems because lake characteristics can modulate atmospheric forcing. While it is known that water clarity changes can alter lake water temperatures, it is unknown if frequently observed water clarity trends are sufficient to meaningfully impact the thermal trajectories of diverse lake populations. Using process-based modeling and empirical observations, this study demonstrates that water clarity changes of about 1% per year amplifies or suppresses warming at rates comparable to climate-induced warming. These results demonstrate that trends in water clarity, which are occurring in many lakes, may be as important...

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